Intelligent E.T. Life Apart from Earth: What a Famous Scientist Concluded

Intelligent E.T. Life Apart from Earth: What a Famous Scientist Concluded

Over the past few years there has been consistent and growing talk in the media (and elsewhere) about the probability of there being intelligent life forms elsewhere in the universe. Much of this is due to grainy video footage and some Congressional hearings on the topic of UFO’s (but they don’t call them UFO’s any…

BOOK: Uneven Justice, The Plot to Sink Galleon

BOOK: Uneven Justice, The Plot to Sink Galleon

Raj Rajaratnam in his Uneven Justice shares his story of being handcuffed and arrested on the morning of October 2009 by five FBI agents and then convicted in Federal Court by New York’s U.S. Attorney for the Southern District, Preet Bharara for “insider trading.” Bharara alleged that 0.02 percent of the trades between 2003-2008 by…

BOOK REVIEW: “Angels All Around Us” by Anthony DeStefano

BOOK REVIEW: “Angels All Around Us” by Anthony DeStefano

BOOK:  Angels All Around Us: A Sightseeing Guide to the Invisible World (formerly titled The Invisible World) , by Anthony DeStefano (Doubleday, 2011) I usually don’t read books that are sent to me unbidden.  Anthony DeStefano’s Angels All Around Us was mailed to me by Priests for Life, an organization I support financially.  If I…

BOOK REVIEW and Author Matthew Kelly:  The Messiness of Life Can Prevent Us from Focusing on Those Things That Lead to A Good Life

BOOK REVIEW and Author Matthew Kelly: The Messiness of Life Can Prevent Us from Focusing on Those Things That Lead to A Good Life

My relationship with New York Times best-selling author and speaker Matthew Kelly dates back to 2004 when another New York Times, best-selling author and friend Patrick Lencioni, brought him to my attention as a potential speaker for the Diocese of Oakland’s Catholics@Work (C@W) Speaker Series. Despite Kelly’s very busy schedule, we were able to bring…

Book Review: Loneliness and the Feeling of Being Unwanted is the Most Terrible Poverty in Today’s World

Book Review: Loneliness and the Feeling of Being Unwanted is the Most Terrible Poverty in Today’s World

J.W. (Terry) Freiberg, social psychologist turned lawyer, explores what St. Teresa of Calcutta (Mother Teresa) called “The most terrible poverty” in his trilogy of books on loneliness – Four Seasons of Loneliness: A Lawyer’s Case Stories (2016), Growing Up Lonely: Disconnection and Misconnection in the Lives of our Children (2019), Surrounded by Others and Yet So…

Codevilla and Lohmeier Provide a One-Two Punch on The Big Picture: What Underlies Today’s Societal Clashes and Division

Codevilla and Lohmeier Provide a One-Two Punch on The Big Picture: What Underlies Today’s Societal Clashes and Division

Like many, I have had a sense something bigger is afoot in America than plain old partisan politics. I have not been able to connect all the dots, but I am finding dots to connect. Angelo M. Codevilla’s The Ruling Class (2010) and Matthew Lohmeier’s The Irresistible Revolution (2021) are two of the bigger dots…

BOOK REVIEW: Failure Is An Option: Rising Above Where We Are and Moving Us to What We Can Be

BOOK REVIEW: Failure Is An Option: Rising Above Where We Are and Moving Us to What We Can Be

I received a copy of Rich Karlgaard’s Late Bloomers: The Power of Patience in a World Obsessed with Early Achievement to review just before it was a published. This book really resonated with me since I have been working with people in transition since 2001 through a parish based ministry. Over 6,000 executives, managers and…

The French geneticist Who Renounced a Nobel Prize to defend the unborn is on his way to sainthood

The French geneticist Who Renounced a Nobel Prize to defend the unborn is on his way to sainthood

French pediatrician and geneticist Jérôme Lejeune, renown for discovering the extra chromosome that causes Down syndrome, was a devout Catholic. As a Catholic, Lejeune thought his historic discovery would lead to a more compassionate approach to children with the syndrome.  Instead—to his horror—Lejeune’s famous discovery became a tool used to diagnose Down Syndrome babies in…

BOOK REVIEW: “Take Care of the People” – Seven Decades as a Priest Devoted to Pastoral Care

BOOK REVIEW: “Take Care of the People” – Seven Decades as a Priest Devoted to Pastoral Care

As he approaches his ninth decade of life, Monsignor Hilary C. Franco, author of Bishop Sheen: Mentor and Friend, has given us a gem of his reflections, Six Popes: A Son of the Church Remembers, encompassing a distinguished life that spans his nearly 70 years as a priest. As a son of Italian immigrants from…

BOOK REVIEW: Digging Your Way to a Good Life

BOOK REVIEW: Digging Your Way to a Good Life

A Book Review of Ken Rusk’s Blue Collar Cash: Love Your Work, Secure Your Future, and Find Happiness for Life— I had the good fortune of working in the construction industry as a bricklayer’s labor during my college years. It was very hard work, but it enabled me to develop physically beyond belief, work with…

Spirituality at the Intersection of a Career Transition and the Discernment of One’s Purpose

Spirituality at the Intersection of a Career Transition and the Discernment of One’s Purpose

A Review of Joe Murphy’s Spiritual Lifeboat. I was introduced to author Joe Murphy by Mary Jo Potter, the former Dignity Health Board Chair and a recent guest on my radio show, THE MENTORS RADIO. Mary Jo suggested we meet due to my work over 20 years helping more than 6,000 professionals navigate their career…

BOOK REVIEW: A true American hero who exchanged the cape for the collar: Fr. Aloysius Schwartz

BOOK REVIEW: A true American hero who exchanged the cape for the collar: Fr. Aloysius Schwartz

The only challenge in reading a compelling new biography of Fr. Aloysius Schwartz, a Washington, D.C. native—entitled Priest and Beggar: The Heroic Life of Venerable Fr. Aloysius Schwartz— is that it seems to transcend reality at times and bring the reader into the realm of mythical superheroes. However, in reading we learn that Aloysius was…

BOOK REVIEW: Understanding Demons and Miracles; Keys to Wisdom and Reducing Spiritual Vulnerability

BOOK REVIEW: Understanding Demons and Miracles; Keys to Wisdom and Reducing Spiritual Vulnerability

Book reviews of “The Catholic Guide to Miracles” and the “Diary of an American Exorcist” I fully embrace the reality of a spiritual dimension to life. It cannot be proven with science, but it can be observed and for some, experienced. I am grateful for having numerous spiritual guides and experiences over many years that…

BOOK REVIEW: How the Use of Questions Can Improve Your Ability to Communicate and Persuade

BOOK REVIEW: How the Use of Questions Can Improve Your Ability to Communicate and Persuade

Former South Carolina Congressman Trey Gowdy is a student of persuasion. He has learned that in the process of persuasion you either bring others closer to your way of thinking or at the very least, to learn about why it is you believe what you believe. Persuasion is an art, and it is about first…

A Christmas Gift: Life-Giving Nourishment for Both the Body and Soul

A Christmas Gift: Life-Giving Nourishment for Both the Body and Soul

The Pontifical Swiss Guard’s elegant “The Vatican Christmas Cookbook” is infused with the Spirit of Christmas with 100 recipes, stories and pictures that are an integral part of the Vatican Christmas narrative. In this beautifully illustrated book, authors David Geisser and Thomas Kelly have again successfully linked our physical and spiritual needs to food –…

BOOK REVIEW: A Special Operations Forces’ Guide to Recruiting & Assessment for Organizational Excellence

BOOK REVIEW: A Special Operations Forces’ Guide to Recruiting & Assessment for Organizational Excellence

In The Talent War, former Army officer, George Randle, and former Navy Seal, Mike Sarraille, join forces to share their decades of experience in talent acquisition and management. Randle is a strategic advisor to Sarraille’s EF Overwatch, and VP of Global Talent Acquisition for Forcepoint, a human-centric cybersecurity company. EF Overwatch is an executive search…

BOOK REVIEW: “Dazzled” Author Provides a Gripping Guide to Overcome the Darkness that can hold us Hostage in Life

BOOK REVIEW: “Dazzled” Author Provides a Gripping Guide to Overcome the Darkness that can hold us Hostage in Life

by Thomas M. Loarie “Dazzled, Finding the Key to Perfect Forgiveness” is one of the best books I have read this year. It is very well-written and difficult to put down. Author Jess Echeverry, with the help of award-winning co-author Patti Maquire Armstrong, has written a dark story about today’s culture and the challenges faced…

BOOK REVIEW: “Trillion Dollar Coach” is The Ultimate Compliment for an Authentic Catholic Leader

BOOK REVIEW: “Trillion Dollar Coach” is The Ultimate Compliment for an Authentic Catholic Leader

I found Trillion Dollar Coach: The Leadership Playbook of Silicon Valley’s Bill Campbell to be an excellent book. As someone who has served as a CEO of early stage companies for many years and has also been asked frequently for advice by growth minded professionals and entrepreneurs, this book resonated. My copy is dog-eared and…

BOOK REVIEW: Manby Focuses on St. Paul’s Timeless Principles for Effective Leaders and Life

BOOK REVIEW: Manby Focuses on St. Paul’s Timeless Principles for Effective Leaders and Life

Joel Manby’s Love Works: Seven Timeless Principles for Effective Leaders is an excellent book that is worth your time and money. Over the course of my career, there have been hundreds of books published on leadership effectiveness. While they all have their own twist, the best of them all share a common thread. They are all…

Fascinating Book Review: The History of the Negro Leagues, Major League Baseball, Chicago and Ernie Banks

Fascinating Book Review: The History of the Negro Leagues, Major League Baseball, Chicago and Ernie Banks

— a review of Ron Rapoport’s “Let’s Play Two: The Legend of Mr. Cub, the Life of Ernie Banks” — I grew up in the northern suburbs of Chicago, so I carried the tag “North Sider” when it came to baseball. And this meant being a Cubs fan in a city divided by the Cubs…

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